


I'll Be Rising With The Morning Tide

by Steerpike13713



Series: Mila Verse [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Adoption, Families of Choice, Fantastic Racism, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I am embarrassed to have written something this fluffy, Internalized Speciesism, POV Child, Religious Guilt, SO MUCH FLUFF, and mostly in chapter 2, in which the author projects her own experiences as an autistic and anxious child, only a very little angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-03-26 17:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13862025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: A month ago, Tozhat Teyma met a pair of strange men in the computer room of the Tozhat Resettlement Centre. Now, Mila Bashir is leaving Bajor to start a new life with her adoptive father on Deep Space Nine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zappy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zappy/gifts).



> ...yeah, this is 100% cheesy, unrepentant, so-sweet-your-teeth-will-rot fluff. Sorry, but I'm not having the best month right now and writing ridiculous amounts of fluff is a reasonable way to cope. Well, better than my original plan, which involved taking over the world, anyway.

She didn’t have much to pack. The PADD Julian had given her - would he let her call him Fa? - and a change of clothes for tomorrow - just the one, as everything except the new sweater and the PADD was a Centre hand-me-down that would be shared out among the other girls in her dormitory as soon as she was gone. She was already wearing her new sweater, the orange one Julian had brought her, and nobody at the Resettlement Centre really had much to take away with them when they left. Simor and Almar had gone last year, to live with farming families where they needed an extra pair of hands, and Celes had gone the year before, because she’d got too old to stay. Teyma had expected to leave that way too. Even the families that came in looking for Cardassian boys who’d be stronger, better able to work the fields than Bajorans, better able to deal with Cardassian soldiers before they all went away, wouldn’t look at a scrawny girl with a curse-name. She’d been Mila before she started thinking that she might have another way out. Julian had said it suited her. Asha had, too, when Mila told her about it, but she’d been busy with one of the little ones - the  _ really  _ little ones, that hadn’t got to talking yet - and Mila still wasn’t sure if she’d listened properly.

The under-ten girls’ dormitory was mostly empty today, except for Mila and Astrel, who was sick in bed and wasn’t supposed to be disturbed, so Mila had to nearly tiptoe about packing, even though there wasn’t really enough to fill the bag Miss Deela had given her, when she’d sent Mila upstairs ready to go when Julian arrived. He was supposed to be there by the fourth hour of Winrenga, like always, and then they’d leave. It was very silly, feeling scared about that. It was what she’d wanted almost since he first visited. All the same, the thought of it made her scales itch uncomfortably, like she’d got something caught under a scale again while shedding.

When she came out, the bag feeling very light even with the addition of the PADD, Asha was waiting for her.

“Miss Deela wants to see you,” she said quietly, avoiding Mila’s eyes. Mila stared down at her boots. Asha had been funny around her ever since they found out that Mila really would be getting adopted. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if Asha even wanted to go to the station - it was Cardassia she wanted. Miss Deela had had to talk to her about that more than once, so she wouldn’t go around filling the little ones’ heads with stories about things they shouldn’t be thinking about. Asha was what the other kids called an Incurable - she’d been older than Mila was now when she came to the Resettlement Centre, had actually been hatched on Cardassia - and even Miss Deela didn’t seem to like her very much. Asha was the only one like that in the Resettlement Centre, just like Mila was the only half-breed, which put them both on the outside. But now Mila wasn’t on the outside. She was going to be gone, and Asha would be the only one.

“Can I come back and see you, once I’ve gone?” she said, halfway down the stairs. Nobody else ever came back, even when most of them were still in the same city, or in the farmland outside it. But Julian had come every week, so she  _ could _ , if she wanted.

Asha shook her head. “You probably won’t want to, when you’re used to wherever it is you’re going,” she said, in an odd sort of voice.

“Oh.”

Mila stared down at her boots. Asha was a lot older than her. She probably didn’t want to be bothered with an annoying little tag-along. She’d let Mila sit with her sometimes and helped her read, but she got asked to sit with younger children all the time. Probably she’d be happy to have one less to worry about.

“Give it a year or two, and you probably won’t even remember my name,” Asha went on.

“I will!” Mila protested. “I remember all kinds of things!”

Asha gave her a slightly half-hearted smile, and didn’t contradict her, which just made it worse. But Mila  _ would  _ remember. She had the sort of memory Miss Deela called ‘unholy’ in its exactitude. She couldn’t quite seem to help it. It didn’t help much with her reading, which went slowly and laboriously still, and for maths it was no good at all, even after Julian showed her with stones how to get a picture in her mind of what it was she was being asked to do. But it was certainly good enough, she felt, to let her remember someone’s  _ name  _ for any length of time. She was nearly fuming over the injustice of being told she couldn’t by the time they reached Miss Deela’s room.

When they got there, Asha knocked on the door, squeezed Mila’s arm, and left her to it as Miss Deela called her in. Mila twisted around to stare after her, rather wishing she’d had company. Inside, Miss Deela was standing in front of her desk, looking faintly tired, but she smiled exhaustedly when Mila came in.

“Tey- Mila,” she said, “All finished?”

Mila nodded and mumbled a ‘yes’.

“Speak up, Mila, I want to hear a ‘yes’.”

“Yes, Miss Deela.”

Miss Deela nodded. “You’re going to be leaving us today,” she said, putting a hand on Mila’s arm. “Are you nervous?”

“No!” Mila said, a little too quickly. “No.”

If she was nervous, Miss Deela might tell Julian, and Julian might think she didn’t want to come live with him, and then she’d be  _ stuck  _ here. 

Miss Deela nodded. “If you were older, I’d tell you to work hard and be sure you remember the gratitude owed to your new guardians and to the Prophets for granting you this chance,” she said, in the very solemn way she’d used to explain that, sometimes, things didn’t work out like the stories, and a doctor, after all, had no reason to take an orphan in to help him in his work and, even if he had, he would have done better to choose one of the older girls, like Asha, who was very nearly grown up already. “But I’ll give you the rest of my usual advice. Be a good girl and mind what Doctor Bashir tells you. The Prophets have given you a great opportunity, Tey- Mila. You owe it to them to make the best of things.”

Mila couldn’t really see what the Prophets had to do with Julian. He wasn’t from Bajor, so they hadn’t made him. He wasn’t of Bajor, so they didn’t watch over him or guide his path the way they did for Bajorans - proper Bajorans, anyway - and he’d come to the Resettlement Centre the first time because the Federation had sent him. Mila knew about the Federation, or she thought she did. They were the new Cardassians, come to conquer Bajor for themselves, or they were Bajor’s protectors against the return of the Cardassians. They were godless, faithless, lawless, untouched by the Word of the Prophets...but the Emissary of the Prophets was a Federation captain or something, and not even a Bajoran! Miss Amia, who had run the centre before Miss Deela, and who had been very old and bent nearly double all the time, with a long, knobbly finger that had nearly paralysed Teyma with fear whenever it was shaken at her, had said he was a false idol, sent by the Pah-Wraiths to seduce followers of the Prophets away from the Celestial Temple. Miss Deela had said it was proof that even those untouched by the light of the Prophets could aspire to share in it, if they went before the Prophets in all humility and lived good lives in their service. Mila had thought for a while that meant that, if you weren’t full-Bajoran, you’d have to be the next-best thing to a vedek to even have a hope of it. She hadn’t much liked the thought of becoming a vedek. But Julian said Commander Sisko wasn’t very much like a vedek at all, which just made the whole thing even more confusing, because if that wasn’t it, why was he chosen? Julian hadn’t really had an answer to that one.

“-try not to talk too much, if you can,” Deela was saying now, “I know how you can chatter on when you get started. Do as he tells you, unless it goes against your teachings, and remember all of us here in your prayers.”

“Yes Miss Deela,” Mila parroted, trying desperately to remember what the bit before ‘don’t talk too much’ had been.

Miss Deela sighed, and brushed a hand over Mila’s hair. “I expect he’ll do his best by you,” she’d said, sounding a little tired. “But quite what a man like that knows about children…” she shook her head. “Remember,” she added, more severely, “He might not understand, but you do. Don’t fall into any bad habits while you’re away. I should hate to see all those years of lessons go to waste.”

There were a lot of lessons in the Resettlement Centre, especially if you were Cardassian. Half Cardassian. The half only seemed to matter to the Cardassians themselves, where all it meant that she was half Bajoran and thus not one of them. To everyone else, she was just a Cardassian. She didn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been scared of the Cardassian soldiers that came through the province, in their heavy, gleaming armour with all its sharp edges with the awful blunt black noses of their disruptors making her want to find something to hide behind. It had been that same terror that drove her under the desk in the computer room when the Cardassian in the striped tunic had come in. Of course then it turned out he was Julian’s friend, and probably safe. He was on Bajor at all, which meant he was probably another like Asha or the others at the Resettlement Centre, who’d grown up on Bajor and been left behind when the soldiers pulled out. She’d felt almost sorry for being scared of him, when she thought of that.

Deela gave Mila an odd, considering look, and then reached out to touch Mila’s right ear, where her D’ja pagh would be put in when she got old enough. Mila tried not to squirm - it always made her uncomfortable when people did this - “Prophets go with you, and keep you on your proper path,” Deela said, and mercifully let go. “Now. Did you remember your toothbrush?”

As it turned out, Mila hadn’t.

She was nearly fizzing with excitement by the third hour of Winrenga, bubbling over with it, so much that she wished she had someone she could tell about it. Not the way she’d told the other kids before, more as a taunt than anything else, that  _ she’d  _ be going to live in space, right up near the Celestial Temple, while they all stayed in workaday Tozhat Province, so she didn’t care  _ what  _ they said about her. Now, she wanted someone like...like Anne and Diana, in the story about the orphan girl with red hair that Julian had said was from Earth, when she’d begged him to read her a little of it. Someone she could talk to who’d be as excited by it all as she was, and as pleased for her as she was pleased to go. Except that then she’d have to leave that someone here, and probably not come back, if Asha had been telling the truth, and she wouldn’t want to do that.

She was impatient for Julian to arrive long before the fourth hour finally arrived, and when it did she nearly raced to the visitors’ room to look out of the window over the street and see if he was coming. But there was no sign of him. This wasn’t unusual, space travel often took more time than you thought it would, Julian said, but it made Mila’s stomach tie itself into a tight little knot. What if he’d changed his mind? What if, on the way over, he’d met some other little girl he liked better and decided to take  _ her  _ home with him instead? It wasn’t as though there was anything that special about Mila, except that she’d happened to be in the computer room at the right time. If it had been one of the others he’d met first, like Bronar or Tarel or Asha, it probably would’ve been them. What would happen if he didn’t? She supposed she’d stay at the Centre, but...what if she couldn’t? Everyone already knew she was leaving. What if she had to? Or- What would be worse? Having nowhere to go or having to stay, here, in the Centre, with everyone knowing that she’d come so close to being able to leave. Bronar would be insufferable if she stayed, she knew. It was the sort of thing the girl in the book would’ve said she’d rather starve on the streets than live through.

She’d more or less resolved that if he didn’t come, she was going to hide in the Centre attic and not come out for the rest of her life, if it could be managed, when Julian arrived at the gate, and all her grim resolutions flew out of her mind at once.

She nearly raced downstairs, ignoring a shouted reminder from one of the older kids drafted in as Miss Deela’s helpers about not running in the halls, tried to take the stairs four at a time and nearly overbalanced, tumbling headlong into Miss Deela herself.

“Mila! What have I always told you about running indoors?”

“Sorry, Miss Deela,” Mila said quickly, not feeling particularly sorry at all. “Is he-”

“Through here,” Miss Deela said, steadying her and settling a hand on her arm to guide her through. “Now, remember our little chat earlier, and everything will be fine.”

Mila nodded, feeling the knot in her stomach tighten a little with nerves, but oddly elated at the same time. This was it. She was leaving. She might never come back to this whole planet again, if Julian was reassigned - he’d said he might be, the week before last, and she’d spent the whole week daydreaming about what it might be like to live on a starship, never seeing the same sky outside two nights in a row - and even if she did, she was never coming back to Tozhat Province.

Julian was waiting in the other room, looking almost as nervous as Mila felt, but he smiled when he saw her.

“There you are!” he said brightly, as if she’d be anywhere else, “Er- Ready to go?”

Mila could’ve bounced on her feet. “I’ve been ready  _ all day! _ ”

“Mila,” Miss Deela said warningly, but caught Julian’s eye and sighed. “You can leave any time you like,” she said, sounding rather tired. “I don’t need your signature for the record, if that’s what you’re wondering.”   
“Thank you,” Julian said, and sounded like he actually meant it. “Is there anything more you need to do before you go?” he added, glancing down at Mila. “Anything at all?”

“No!” Mila nearly chirped, grabbing his hand.

Julian nodded, and took her bag, slinging it easily over his shoulder. “All right, then - thank you,” he added, looking at Miss Deela, “For all your...help.”

Miss Deela gave a strained smile. “No trouble at all,” she said, “Goodbye, Mila.”

“Bye,” Mila mumbled, already tugging at Julian’s hand to be off.

They were two streets away when Julian turned to her, and said, quite casually, “So...do you want to go back straightaway after lunch, or is there anything you’d like to do here, first, since it’s your last day?”

Mila blinked. “We’re getting lunch?”

“Have you had lunch?” Julian asked.

“No, but-”

“Then we’re getting it. You need something to eat, and it takes  _ hours  _ to get from here to the wormhole. It’ll probably be almost time for dinner when we get in.”

Mila scowled. “So then why do we have to have lunch now, if we’re just going to eat again when we reach the station?”

She wanted, more than anything, to be off, and to be in space. She’d never been into space before, nor had anyone she knew. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t gone without meals for longer before - back when there were still Cardassian soldiers around, sometimes they’d only got one meal a day, and she was sure she wouldn’t mind it if she got to go into  _ space _ .

“Because,” Julian said, rather exasperatedly, “You’re...look, you’re growing all the time. And on top of that you’re walking around and playing and reading and asking questions. And to do all of that, you need energy, and to have enough energy to do all that, you need fuel.”

“I could be very still on the spaceship?” Mila suggested.

Julian frowned at her. “Well, all right…” he said, in the tone he used when he was trying to get her to disagree with him. “I was going to suggest we get dessert as well - that moba tart thing you liked so much last time, maybe - to celebrate, but since you’re clearly not interested…”

Mila frowned. Fruit tart or space. It wasn’t exactly a balanced choice. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t get the space travel if she had the tart…

“I s’pose…” she muttered, scuffing her boot along the cracked pavement.

Julian grinned. “Brilliant. Come on.”

People still stared at them at lunch, but they always stared. It was as if no-one had anything better to look at, Mila thought grumpily, as she nibbled at the edge of a slice of battered porli. Julian didn’t seem to notice, and so Mila did her best to pretend that she didn’t notice either, and asked instead about how many planets he’d been to.

“Well, my family lived all over,” Julian said, sounding for the first time awkward. “So...quite a few. I think I might’ve lost count, actually…”

“You  _ lost count _ ?” Mila repeated, incredulous. “Of  _ planets _ ?”

Julian laughed, “It sounds very silly, put like that, but it happens. Er...let’s see, there was Earth, and...hm...and Invernia II…and here, of course.”

Mila stared at him. How did you just  _ not remember _ something like that? Would she go to so many planets she couldn’t count them off the top of her head one day? It hardly seemed possible.

Julian, meanwhile, was frowning at her bag. “Just how much do you have with you?” he asked, in an odd sort of voice.

“Everything!” Mila protested, indignant. “I checked twice! Spare clothes, your PADD, toothbrush. Like I said, everything.”   
Julian’s eyebrows had gone up. “...it doesn’t look that full.”

“You can check if you like,” Mila muttered, rather plaintively.

“Hey,” Julian said, leaning to catch her eye, “It’s not about that. I know you can pack your own bags, and if you’ve forgotten anything, that’s fine too, we can deal with that. I just want to know how many new things you’re going to need going forward, all right?”

“I’m getting  _ presents  _ as well?” Mila exclaimed.

Julian laughed at that, “Rather dull ones, I’m afraid. Just new clothes and school things. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

Mila, who had not received enough really new things in her life to consider that they might be disappointing if she did, goggled at him. “‘m not,” she said, suddenly shy. “Are we...do we have to get them before we go?”

Julian went still for a bit, then smiled, but there was something a little strained about it. “About that,” he said, “I...did tell you that my friend Garak is a tailor, back on the station? I...was planning to take you to his shop first thing tomorrow, if you have no objections.”

“Garak?” Mila parroted. “He’s...that Cardassian, who was with you before, isn’t he?”

Julian nodded, “I understand if you don’t...if you’re a little nervous,” he started, “But you mentioned you got along fine with Asha, and he’s really not frightening at all.”

Not frightening at all...Mila cast back to her memories of the man. She mostly remembered him quietly fixing the computer and talking to Julian over her head about something that had sounded very boring and grown-up. And he’d let her play with his eyeglass-thing.

She took another bite of her porli. “Ok.”

“Good,” Julian said, smile brightening at that. “I...thought you might want to talk to him, actually. If...if you have any questions about Cardassia, say. Not that you have to,” he added hastily, “I won’t force you to if you really can’t stand the idea, but you  _ are  _ part-Cardassian, and that’s...you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

Mila went still. She hadn’t expected that. “...you’re not supposed to talk about that,” she said in a small voice.

“Why not?”

“B’cause...it’s...Miss Deela says it’s leading us astray.”

Julian sighed. “Miss Deela and I...don’t always agree on things,” he said. “Just talking about where you came from - the other half of where you came from - won’t hurt anything, if you want to find out a bit more.”

Mila frowned to herself. This was already starting to sound like the sort of thing Miss Deela would call ‘forgetting her lessons’.

“Is Garak like Asha?” she asked, meaning ‘safe’ or ‘not a monster’.

Julian frowned. “...no, from what I can tell he grew up over there,” he said, sounding rather puzzled. “That’s part of why I thought you might want to talk to him. I know you haven’t met many decent Cardassians who are actually- who actually came from Cardassia, and you’ve probably heard all sorts of stories about them. It can’t be a very good thing to hear about a part of yourself.”

His voice was very soft on that last part.

Mila shrugged. “We’re s’posed to be getting better, though? I mean...Miss Deela says we’re just...very scaly Bajorans. Not- Not  _ monsters _ .”

“You aren’t monsters,” Julian agreed. “But that isn’t because you’re Bajoran. Well, obviously you are Bajoran,” he added quickly, “But even if you weren’t, you’re not a monster. Did Garak seem like a monster, when you met him?”

Mila shook her head. “I thought he was like Asha,” she mumbled. “That they’d civi- that they’d taught him how to be Bajoran and he wasn’t a monster anymore.”

“No.” Julian’s hand was on hers. “That isn’t how it works. You’re not...there were monsters, in the Occupation. And most of them were Cardassians. Like I told you, they were monsters because of what they  _ did _ , not what they were. But sometimes…” he paused for a second, and then went on. “It’s not really Miss Deela’s fault. She’d probably never met a good Cardassian before she had to look after all of you. And, sometimes, if you just keep meeting the worst of a group, you end up thinking they’re all like that.”

“But a lot of them  _ were… _ ” Mila started. “Bronar says the Cardassians  _ eat  _ Bajoran children! He said-”

He’d asked if she sometimes got confused and tried to eat herself, and bitten his own arm to demonstrate. Then of course everyone else had thought that was really funny and bitten their own arms at her whenever she walked by for  _ ages _ . She’d tried to go to Miss Deela, but she’d just said that the Prophets send everyone trials, and that there was always a lesson to be learned, and after all, no-one had really hurt her, had they?

“I’ve never seen Garak eating anything that didn’t come out of a replicator,” Julian said. “You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to,” he added, “But he’s very friendly, and he’s probably the best person to get your new things from. He made that sweater you’re wearing.”

Mila looked down at her sleeve. It was a very good sweater. She liked the colour of it, rich and bright and cheerful, and it was wonderfully warm.

“...I guess we can go see him,” she muttered.

There was a pause as the waiter came over and Julian paid, and then they were out, on the street, walking back to the spacedock. It was in a different quarter of town to the Centre, even further out on the edge of the city, and the stares grew less and less the closer they got. People were more used to seeing aliens here, and she clung on tightly to Julian’s hand, half-afraid that she’d lose him in the crowd of spacers and never find him again. They had to stop at a booth for a few seconds before being sent on into the spacedock.

Mila had expected there to be lines upon lines of ships waiting ready, but, inside, there were just plain corridors, and lines of people.

“We’re taking the civilian shuttle up,” Julian said, when she asked him. “I’m not really allowed to borrow runabouts except for official business - I only got away with it a few weeks ago because we’re not actually at war right now.”

“...you  _ stole  _ a runabout to come see me?” Mila demanded. Miss Deela would call that shameful, but she- she was smiling so wide it hurt now. He’d  _ have  _ to keep her, if he’d wanted to see her that much.

“Borrowed,” Julian corrected. “I  _ did  _ ask ahead of time. We’ve got about a half-hour wait for the shuttle even after lunch,” he added. “Shall we find a seat somewhere? We’ve got time to read for a bit before the shuttle arrives.”

They got through two and a half chapters of a story about a girl who who got turned into an old lady and a wizard who ate hearts before the call came that the shuttle was there. Mila, who had been starting to become quite alarmed for her heroine’s safety, had almost forgotten it was coming at all.

“But!” she managed, as they went and joined the queue of Bajorans going up to see the Celestial Temple, “You can’t just leave it there! Does- Is she going to defeat Howl and free Michael? She’s  _ got  _ to, hasn’t she?”

“We’ll just have to read and find out,” Julian said, his hands busy with their ticket chits. “Stay as close as you can, Stardust, I can’t lose track of you now.”

They were getting their share of funny looks still, from the others in the queue, and when they reached the front, the man checking ticket chits looked at the two of them even more strangely.

“Can’t take a child off-planet without parental permission,” he grunted, taking their chit off Julian.

“I’m her father,” Julian said, in the sort of very calm voice she only usually heard him use around Miss Deela.

Mila’s heart did a happy little flip. They’d avoided that word, so far. Even when he’d asked her to come live with him, he’d never said what he’d be to her. Did he mean it? Did this mean she could call him Fa, or whatever it was girls in the Federation called their fathers?

“... _ you _ are?”

“Unless you were referring to some other child, yes.” There was a funny note to Julian’s voice now. It sounded as if he were getting ready for a fight.

The ticket-taker frowned. “Any proof of that?”

Julian fished in a pocket and produced a piece of paper for the guard to look at. Adults seemed to set a lot of store by pieces of paper for some reason, and this one was no exception.

“...huh. All in order.” He snorted. “Bashir Teyma? Well, better you than us.”

Mila flinched. Julian put a hand on her arm and glared at the ticket-taker. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he said, rather coldly. “Excuse us.”

Mila was sniffling before they reached their seats. That only made people stare more. Usually, a comment like that would’ve been fine. People said things all the time, and she’d never- It was something that happened. ‘Teyma’ was just a word, wasn’t even her name anymore, she’d never wanted to be called that again. But this was supposed to be the start of her new life. And now she was crying,  _ in public _ , like a baby, and  _ everyone  _ could see. Julian stopped in the middle of the aisle when the tears started in earnest, looked around, and knelt down to give her a hug. 

“Just a little further,” he whispered in her ear, “Come on, up you go,” and, without any other warning, lifted her straight off her feet with her face still buried in his shoulder, his free hand smoothing back her hair over and over as she tried and failed not to sob. Like this, it was easier. If anyone was staring at her, she couldn’t see them, and didn’t want to. She clung on to Julian, wishing the tears would stop, but unable to stop shaking. 

“Mila? Stardust, I’m going to have to put you down now,” Julian’s voice said in her ear, “Look, you’ve got the seat by the porthole. You’ll be able to see everything as we leave orbit.”

Mila clung onto him as he set her down on her feet again, but was distracted in time to scramble over the seats to the end of the row, and peer out of the porthole. There wasn’t much to look at, except the inside of the hangar, and she turned back to see Julian tucking the bag underneath his seat. He smiled at her when she caught his eye.

“We’ve got a little while yet before the shuttle sets off,” he said, moving to sit next to her, “And then a few stops on Bajor before we’re on to Deep Space Nine.”

“Where?”

Julian paused. “Well, the exact list depends on what day it is, but from here I think it’s Rakantha, then Lotha, then Jerad - Tozhat’s one of the last stops coming in and going out.”

It must have taken him hours to get there every week, Mila thought.

“How long does it take to get to Deep Space Nine?” she asked.

Julian winced. “Six and a half hours,” he admitted. “You’re probably going to be bored before we get in, but-”

She hugged him, just on impulse, before he could go much further, and felt him laugh softly against her hair and hug back. He was very warm, and very safe-feeling, somehow. She didn’t know any better way to put it than that. Six and a half hours every week. Twice every week, because he had to go back. Thirteen hours. That was half a day all on its own on top of spending time with her. And sometimes it had been late - past the third hour of Yeshaddo, some weeks - before he’d gone away again. He must  _ really  _ want to keep her.

“Plenty of time for reading, I suppose,” he said against her hair, “If you like. We might manage to finish the book before we even get home.”

_ Home _ . She liked the sound of that as well. She cuddled a bit closer. “Can you start now?”

Julian blinked. “Well, if you like,” he said, letting go of her to pull the bag out and into his lap, and fish around inside it for the PADD. “Where were we…”

“There was something in the fire!” Mila supplied, as Julian finally produced the PADD.

He smiled. “Well, we’ll have to get to the bottom of that. Do you want to…” he held out an arm in invitation, and Mila nestled in happily against his side. She’d never been so warm before, or so comfortable. “ _ ‘It was definitely the fire that spoke, _ ” Julian read. “ _ Sophie saw its purple mouth move as the words came. Its voice was nearly as cracked as her own, full of the spitting and whining of burning wood…’ _ ”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah....I couldn't just leave it alone, could I? Sorry, but the story of Mila's first few days on DS9 felt like it needed a few additions. Also, writing fluff with slight traces of angst is how I deal with the world going to shit. This chapter is more angst-heavy than usual, because of my pervading gloom, but also because Mila is so terrified of losing all the wonderful things that she's either got already or is going to get in the near future. So....sorry about that.  
> Also - Julian is doing his best here, but cross-cultural sensitivity is not his greatest strength, so he will probably make a few blunders dealing with Mila's heritage, even if they are well-meaning ones and he will work to improve as he learns more about Bajoran and Cardassian culture from proximity to Mila's lessons.  
> To be clear, chapter 3 is in the works, but I don't know how long it'll take. Tune in next time for Jadzia, Garak, Keiko, Odo and a return to normal levels of fluff and cuteness.

Mila didn’t remember falling asleep, but at some point she must’ve done, because the next thing she was aware of was Julian’s hand on her arm, shaking her awake.

“Stardust? We’re nearly there.”

“...what…” she mumbled sleepily, trying to nestle in closer against the warm, firm surface she’d been napping on, even as it shifted.

“We’re about ten minutes out from DS9,” Julian repeated quietly. “If you look out of the window now, you’ll see the Wormhole.”

_ That  _ woke her up.

The Wormhole! The Celestial Temple! No-one else back at the Centre had ever even  _ seen  _ it, except in pictures. She straightened up hastily, pulling away from Julian to scramble over to the porthole. It was pitch black outside the window, and actually kind of boring now they’d left Bajor behind, so she couldn’t see the planet she’d been born on shrinking to a blue dot behind them, and the novelty of travelling through the velvety star-studded blackness of it had started to wear off. The stops on Bajor had been more interesting - mountains and rivers and lakes and deserts and cities, visible through gaps in the clouds - but space, it turned out, was a lot more boring than advertised. Still, the Celestial Temple! Mila wasn’t very good at following the Word of the Prophets, and if the Prophets hadn’t wanted Cardassians on Bajor they probably wouldn’t want her either, and for the longest time she’d thought they were just another thing like the giant aspth that Miss Amia had said lived in the generator and would eat up anyone found out of bed without permission overnight, but which had never come to eat Mila, even when she’d hidden in the bedding cupboard all night and not been found until lunchtime the next day. But then the news had come that they’d found the Celestial Temple, just after Miss Amia went away and Miss Deela got put in charge at the Centre, and it had turned out the Prophets were real. Not real in the way people had said they were, always present, invisible, but real enough that they could be seen and touched. And the Emissary had spoken with them. Mila had hid in the bedding cupboard again that night, terrified that the Prophets would  _ know  _ she had thought they were made-up.

She craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of it - in the pictures, it was blue and gold and purple, and shone with a sort of golden light that people said was the blessing of the Prophets. But the sky outside was just black, the same as the rest of space, except for, in the distance - or what looked like the distance, but everything was ‘the distance’ in space - a sort of silver ring, with spikes set around it, that looked like the crown of one of the wicked queens in the Federation fairy-tales Julian had been reading to her.

“It’s nothing special to look at until it opens,” Julian said behind her, “But there’s the station, anyway, and if we’re lucky, we might get a look at one of the colony ships for New Bajor heading out - there’s one supposed to leave the station this evening.”

Mila scowled. “You said I’d see the Wormhole!”

“And you will,” Julian said placatingly, holding up his hands, “You’ll be living right next to it! But that isn’t the main reason I woke you up-  the passenger announcement just sounded. We’re nearly there. You should probably put your shoes back on,” he added. “Do you need help with the laces, or…”

“I can do my own laces!” Mila complained. Had Miss Deela told him? She must’ve done. Why had she told him that? Only  _ babies  _ couldn’t do their own shoes. It wasn’t her fault, but there was something wrong with her fingers. She was all thumbs and claws and whatever she did, she always ended up trailing her bootlaces wherever she went.

Her boots had rolled under her seat while she was asleep, and it was more of a struggle getting them on than she’d expected - they were a couple of sizes too big for her, kept on by three pairs of thick, woolly socks, so that her feet were the only part of her that were ever properly warm. It took three goes to get the laces knotted, and by the way Julian was looking at her she was probably doing it wrong, which just made the whole thing worse. What if Miss Deela hadn’t told him and he’d just wanted to be nice? What if he didn’t want a little girl who couldn’t tie her laces at the age of six and snapped at him when he offered to help? What if he was so disappointed that as soon as they got to the station he’d turn around and put her right on the next shuttle back to the Centre? She could almost see what Miss Deela’s expression would be when she got back, how disappointed she’d be that Mila hadn’t learnt her lessons properly, after all that trouble.

“...if you do need help,” Julian prodded. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed abou-”

“I said I can!”

Mila glared at her shoelaces, willing them not to come undone this time. It didn’t seem to be working. One of them was already coming loose. She added another granny-knot to the string of them, and sat back defiantly, staring out the window as the spiky silver ring that was the station drew closer.

Julian sighed. “Not much longer,” he promised, “It’s twenty-one hundred hours, station time - er, the third hour of Yeshaddo - so just enough time to get dinner and get you settled in before bed, all right?”

“‘m not tired,” Mila protested, stifling a yawn. “I just woke up!”

Julian frowned at her. “Yes, but- Look, you need your sleep, all right? Otherwise you’ll be up all night and you won’t get to see anything of the station in the morning.”

“I can see things just as well at night! Better than any of the others can!” Better than any of the proper Bajorans, anyway, and at least as well as Asha.

“With everyone in bed?” Julian asked, giving her a comical wide-eyed look. “It’d be rather boring, wouldn’t it, just wandering around an empty station after everywhere’s closed up for the night?”

Mila wrinkled her nose. “ _ Everything _ stops at night? Even- What if- if there’s a fire? Or- Or the station’s attacked by Cardassians or Pah-Wraiths or the imaginary friend things again?”

“....the imaginary creatures were more embarrassing than anything,” Julian said, sounding more than a little awkward, “But, no, Ops keeps going overnight. There’s a night shift crew who handle that. And...there are a few places on the Promenade that stay open. But they’re not very nice places, especially not at night. Besides, you’ll be starting school in a day or two, and you’ll want to be awake for that.”

_ Wanting  _ to be awake for school was the strangest thing Julian had ever come out with. Who wanted to spend all day penned in and unable to get away from Bronar and Tarel and Aamin and all the others, listening to someone drone on about problems that didn’t make sense no matter how Mila tried to twist them around.

“Do I have to go?”

“Yes,” Julian said firmly. “You definitely have to go to school, or at least...if it’s completely unbearable, there are other learning programmes, but you do have to get your education  _ somewhere _ , and Professor O’Brien’s school seems like the best place for that.” He reached out, very slowly, as if she were a wild tiku that might bolt if he moved too suddenly, and brushed a hand over Mila’s hair. “You won’t know until you’ve tried. Who knows, you might make a few friends.”

Mila looked away, her stomach roiling. “I don’t have friends.”

“Would you like some?”

She didn’t really have an answer to that.

“....will there be other humans at the school?” she asked, instead of answering.

Julian blinked. “...yes, a few of them. I know there’s at least one, though he’s quite a lot older than you. And there are other ‘Fleet families on the station, and- and I know Professor O’Brien has a daughter about your age, give or take a couple of years.”

A couple of years. So either a baby or a bigger girl around Bronar’s age, and Mila had never had much luck with either. The babies at least had the advantage of not being big enough to understand that, even if Mila was a monster, she wasn’t a big enough monster to be able to devour them whole. Still….other humans. Other humans who wouldn’t know what it meant that she was Cardassian, or who might think, as Julian did, that it didn’t matter at all. Lessons would still be difficult, but- but it might be worth it, to have actual  _ friends _ , like Anne and Diana in the book.

The voice that had announced their take-off sounded again, and when she looked out of the window, the great silver caltrop of the station was close enough that she could see it properly. Two great silver rings, glittering with lighted windows, with spikes at the cardinal points, curling in towards the circle at the centre.

“There, at the outside, is the docking ring,” Julian said behind her, “That’s where we’ll be landing. Our quarters are in the second ring in - that’s the habitat ring - and in the centre there’s the Promenade. Sort of like a shopping district on a planet? We’ll be going there tomorrow, to get your new things and get you enrolled in school.”

“I have to start  _ tomorrow _ ?” Mila demanded, looking around in dismay.

“No, no,” Julian said quickly, “I’ve got the next few days off to help you settle in and get used to the station first, barring emergencies. If there is an emergency…” he paused. “There are a few people I trust on the station. I might have to leave you with one of them for a little while, just while I sort out whatever the problem is in sickbay. Will you be able to cope with that?”

“‘m not a baby,” Mila muttered, “You can just leave me on my own….”

She didn’t want him to, but he could. People did that all the time - there weren’t enough adults at the Centre to watch everyone all the time, so of course most of them watched the babies, or watched the older kids by having  _ them  _ watch the babies, and left the middling ones more or less to themselves. Mila was on the smaller end of being one of the middling ones, but she still counted.

“No, I can’t,” Julian said, in that same very final tone he’d used while talking about school. “But I’m not just going to abandon you with someone you don’t know either, if I can help it.”

“But I don’t know anyone!”

“And, a month ago, you didn’t know me either.” Julian smiled at her. “It’s not that different, I promise. And I’ll be right there, at least for the first while. My friend Jadzia’s quite eager to meet you, you know.”

“Why?”

“Because….because you’re my daughter. Or….” Julian coughed. “We...haven’t really talked about that, have we?”

Mila felt an odd sort of swell in her chest. He’d called himself her father, talking to the ticket collector. Calling her his daughter wasn’t any different, but-

“Can I be?” she asked. “I mean….am I?”

“I….I’ve been thinking of it that way for a while,” Julian admitted. “I’m not- I’m not asking you to start calling me ‘Dad’ if you don’t want to, but-”

Mila hugged him, hard, burying her face in his chest. “I’d like that,” she said, suddenly shy, and felt his arm come around her, warm and heavy and protective.

“Me too,” Julian replied, his voice slightly rough, and she felt his nose brush against her hair before he pulled away. “Come on, seatbelt on - we’re about to dock.”

He did the seatbelt for her, without asking this time, and sat back as an odd sort of juddering movement started. When Mila looked out of the window, all she saw was blackness, interrupted by the great steel spike outside, so vast it seemed to fill the whole world.

Docking, it turned out, was much less exciting than take-off and landing had been. Mila had loved the feeling of take-off at every station on Bajor - the rush of speed, the world dropping away beneath them - but docking was just….a few minutes of juddering, and then a slight jolt, and then stillness, and the announcement that they would shortly be ready to begin disembarking.

“Ready?” Julian asked, squeezing Mila’s hand gently in his. Mila nodded, her heart in her throat. She had never been out of Tozhat. It had been a rare treat for her to venture outside the Centre’s walls. Now, she was here, in space, so far away from everything she had known that they had to measure in  _ years  _ instead of sensible miles. But she was here and now, floating in space. It felt as if- as if she’d left Tozhat Teyma down on Bajor. She was Bashir Mila now. Or- How did Julian have it? Mila Bashir. It sounded funny, put that way around, but she liked the strange, out-land tang of it. Not even the shape of her name was the same anymore, and it was- was it terrible of her, to be so relieved by the loss? No more pitying looks when her name was called, no more ‘Teyma’, like something out of a fairy-tale, named as a mother’s curse. She clung onto Julian’s hand, and followed him into the aisle, her bag from the Centre gripped in his other hand.

It took a while for their bit of the shuttle to start moving out. The people at the front got priority, and they were far enough back that Mila was kicking her heels and staring at the ceiling by the time the line started moving enough for them to join it. Once it did, they came out into a long, bare steel corridor, even duller than the ones at the shuttleport back home. It was a disappointment, was what it was. Mila had been expecting something a bit more exciting, from an actual space station, and the sudden chill came as an awful shock, even though Julian didn’t seem to have noticed it. They went down the long corridor, and then down another, and Mila clung to Julian’s hand in the crowd, afraid she might be swept away if she let go for a moment. She’d expected to see more aliens, but almost every face around her was Bajoran, and she could feel eyes on her, wondering what a dirty little spoonhead like her was doing here, so close to the Celestial Temple. She clung on tight to Julian’s hand and moved a little closer, trying to pretend the eyes weren’t there. It didn’t work.

The corridor ended in a large round hatch, standing open, just a little too high for her to step over, so that Julian had to lift her up to get her over it. Beyond that was a big room, full of seats and benches and people - not just the people who’d come on the shuttle with them, but others, standing around expectantly, or having happy reunions with people off the shuttle. Julian stopped dead at the sight of one of them, a tall Janitzan man - or whatever the human equivalent of being Janitzan was - in the same sort of uniform as Julian, except that the shoulders of it were red instead of blue.

“I- Commander, is there a problem?”

The man blinked, and looked around. “No problem, doctor. The Yridian trade delegation sent a message to say they’d be a few hours late.”

Julian nodded, looking faintly embarrassed, and Mila realised with a shock who this must be. The Emissary of the Prophets! The man who’d actually seen, spoken with the Prophets, who was the next-best thing to a Prophet himself. She’d expected something...Prophet-ier. He- He couldn’t  _ tell _ , could he? That she hadn’t believed in them, that she forgot her prayers and wasn’t even sure she  _ wanted  _ to submit to the will of the Prophets, if her old life had been what the Prophets had wanted for her. She shrank back a little, edging partly behind Julian, but the Emissary’s eyes had already found her.

“This is….?”

“This is Mila,” Julian said, smiling widely, and looked around and down at her. “Stardust, this is Commander Sisko. I’ve told you about him before…?”

Mila nodded, a little jerkily, not wanting to let go of him. When she looked back up, the Emissary was smiling.

“Hello, Mila,” he said, crouching down to extend a hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Mila’s stomach turned over. “I didn’t do it!” she blurted out, thinking of all the times she’d been told that the Prophets would know if she’d been bad, even when she hadn’t done anything at all. Like the time she’d been scolded for lying when she’d said she hadn’t broken Tarel’s doll. She’d said she hadn’t, and Tarel said she had, and so of course Tarel was believed, and Mila had to pray and kiss the floor and beg the Prophets’ forgiveness for her deceit.

The Emissary blinked. “...didn’t do what?” he asked, sounding honestly confused.

Where to begin? There were so many things Mila hadn’t done, or had done, but shouldn’t have. Would he know all of them? She scuffed her boot against the steel floor, face burning.

“Commander Sisko is friends with my friend Jadzia,” Julian said quietly, also crouching a little and resting a hand on Mila’s back, “I’ve told her a lot about you. I didn’t know she’d been passing it on, though.”

“Dax doesn’t get invited to be a godparent every day,” the Emissary said, his smile widening a little. “Welcome to Deep Space Nine, Mila.”

“‘nk you,” Mila mumbled, staring down at her boots.

The Emissary straightened up, tucking his hands behind his back. “I’ll let you get back to your quarters, Doctor.”

Julian nodded, straightening, then paused. “....sir, about this trade delegation….”

“Lieutenant Dax will be handling the delegates, this time,” the Commander said, an odd sort of note in his voice, as if there was a joke being told that Mila didn’t understand. “You’re still on leave for the next few days. Make the most of it.”

They were out of the waiting room and halfway to what Julian said was a turbolift before Mila got up the nerve to speak.

“...I didn’t think he’d like me.”

Julian frowned a little. “Why wouldn’t he like you? The Commander is an  _ excellent  _ judge of character.”

That was worrying, even if the Prophets  _ hadn’t  _ somehow told the Emissary - Commander Sisko - everything she’d ever done against their teachings. But- But he’d been nice to her. He hadn’t seemed to mind the scales or the ridges. He hadn’t even seemed to notice them.

“What did you tell his friend?” she asked, sticking a little closer as they reached the turbolift. It was grey too, with hard, sharp lines, and no more exciting than the corridor or the waiting room had been.

“Jadzia?” Julian asked, sounding faintly distracted. “Er, habitat ring,” he added, looking up at the ceiling. “I...well, I’ve talked to her a lot since the paperwork went in. She’s. Um. I asked if she wanted to be your godmother? I haven’t been able to find out if there’s anything similar on Bajor - it means that if anything happens to me that means I can’t look after you anymore, she will.”

“Nothing will- You won’t let anything happen to you, will you?”

Julian sighed, and crouched down again to look her in the eyes. “I….might not get the choice, Stardust.”

She scowled at him. “ _ Don’t _ let anything happen to you,” she said, crossing her arms and setting her chin.

Julian opened his mouth, as if he wanted to argue, then closed it and smiled again, smaller and somehow sadder. “I’ll do my best.”

The doors slid open, and Julian scrambled to his feet, taking Mila’s hand again as they stepped out into the corridor. It was mostly empty - not entirely, but mostly, and those few people who were out in the corridors were too busy with their own affairs to spare a glance at Mila. Every now and again, though, someone would do a double-take and stare, and Mila clung on a little more tightly to Julian’s hand. The Emissary of the Prophets hadn’t said she couldn’t stay on his station, she reminded herself. That meant no-one else could complain about it, right? And- And Julian had asked her to call him ‘Dad’, which was apparently what girls in the Federation said instead of ‘Fa’, so he wasn’t going to send her back to the Centre, not unless she did something  _ really  _ bad.

“Just in here,” Julian said, stopping at a door that looked just like all the other doors all the way along the corridor, and pressing his palm to a plate that stood out on the wall beside it, so the door slid open with a soft mechanical hiss. “What would you like for dinner? You must be starving.”

“Dunno,” Mila mumbled, following him into a room a little smaller than one of the dormitories at the Centre. It didn’t look like the sort of place she’d imagined living in, all those times she’d daydreamed about it at the Centre. The walls were plain grey metal, and so was the floor. There was a sofa, a low table, a higher table with chairs, a food replicator like the one the Centre had got sent to them last year, and a wide, round window with a view of nothing but velvety star-dotted blackness outside. There were also rather a lot of boxes sitting in a stack against the far wall, not far from the window. 

Julian saw her staring, and smiled awkwardly. “I haven’t quite finished getting everything unpacked yet,” he admitted. “Er- your room is through here. I haven’t got much for it yet, so you can decorate it yourself.”

She’d never had a room all to herself before. Looking in on it, she could see why. It was just as bare as the main room had been, just a bed and a table and a wardrobe. And all of it was  _ hers _ . It was less than half the size of her dormitory back at the centre, but it was still more space than Mila had ever had to herself before.

“It’s a little bleak, isn’t it?” Julian said behind her, sounding oddly nervous. “But we can replicate whatever you like for it in the morning.”

What was she supposed to want for it? Bedrooms were places you slept in, and staying in the dormitory during the day was only for when you were sick. Was she allowed to ask that? Would he think she was silly for not knowing? She bit her lip, staring around at the room.

“...do they do orange blankets?” she asked shyly.

Julian squeezed her hand. “They can do. You don’t want anything else? Pictures, or....or toys, maybe? I probably should’ve prepared more before you got here, but I didn’t know what you’d want.”

How much more was she allowed to ask for? She stared around the room, barely seeing it, and Julian cleared his throat again.

“Why don’t I leave you alone for a little while, to get unpacked and settled in? I’ll call when dinner’s ready.”

“‘kay.”

He set down her bag and gave her an awkward smile before disappearing off into the main room, letting the door slide closed behind him. Mila swallowed a little at the sound. It was silly, to feel like this. She hadn’t liked most of the girls in her dormitory, after all, and most of them hadn’t liked her. She’d spent most of her time at the Centre trying desperately to find places to hide, places where she could be on her own...but now she had one, and it was suddenly too much? She was being silly. The bed, when she tested it, was softer than the beds at the Centre, and for a moment she was half worried she’d sink straight through the mattress, through the floor and out into space, where any one of the litany of horrible fates that had been listed during the safety video on the shuttle might befall her. The blankets had an odd, scratchy, tacky feeling - not the honest woollen scratchiness of Centre blankets, but something new that seemed to stick to the scales. The wardrobe was tall enough she had to stretch to reach the hangers, and her one change of clothes from the Centre looked very dismal, all off to one side. She put her PADD on the bedside table, but even so. Even with all her things unpacked, this didn’t look like a room in which someone lived.

Actually, none of this place did - there were boxes still in the main room, as if Julian hadn’t even finished moving in. Maybe he hadn’t. Why would he need another room, if he’d lived alone before? That- That had to mean he wanted to keep her. She wouldn’t be sent back, not unless she did something  _ really  _ bad. People didn’t get sent back to the Centre anyway, not often. If they got sick - really sick, badly sick, never-get-better-but-not-going-to-die sick - they might be, or if they weren’t strong enough or didn’t work hard enough, or if one of the childless couples who came to the Centre looking for one of the really little kids had a baby of their own and didn’t need or couldn’t afford the extra mouth. Or if the new family died - that had happened too. It hadn’t even been particularly rare.

Mila had gotten sick every winter she could remember, but they didn’t have winter and summer in space, and Julian hadn’t said anything about putting her to work. She was slow in her lessons, but he’d already known that from all those weeks he’d spent patiently explaining to her about sums and numbers and what you could do with them. And if he wasn’t even married, he wasn’t going to have a real kid of his own any time soon. All she had to do was hold on and behave herself. Even she couldn’t screw that up too badly, could she?

“Stardust?” Julian said, putting his head around the door, “Dinner.”

She’d been half-dreading and half-expecting something every bit as strange and alien as the station itself, so it was a sideways sort of disappointment to get to the table and see a perfectly ordinary plate of spiced klemmen, rather than worrying about whether or not she’d like whatever it was humans ate.

“I assumed,” Julian said quietly, when she looked up at him, “That moving would be enough disruption for one day. If you’d prefer something else, I can-”

“‘s fine,” Mila mumbled. No sense in starting things off by wasting perfectly good food, and she didn’t dislike klemmen, exactly. “You don’t have to…”

“Yes, I do,” Julian said firmly. “Is there another story you’d like to hear tonight?”

Mila blinked.

“...I had one on the shuttle,” she reminded him.

“If you don’t want another, that’s fine, but it’s...well. It’s a human ritual, to have your- to read a story together before bed every night.”

“Did your parents do that with you?”

“...for a while.” He smiled a rather strained smile. “They...well, they stopped earlier than I’d have liked, because I was supposed to be able to read for myself instead of having them do it all the time.”

“I can read!” Mila protested. It was one of the few things she  _ could  _ do as well as anyone else, and better than some. She wanted him to read to her - she liked the sound of his voice, the way he changed it to do Sophie’s creaky old woman’s voice or Howl’s funny accent - but if being read to was only for baby humans, she could do without. In the Centre, stories had been read sometimes, but generally to a whole group at a time. She’d never been allowed to interrupt a story with questions before, or ask for something she hadn’t quite heard right to be repeated. It was a nice feeling, knowing that this time, the story was just for her. The feeling of it being a rare treat hadn’t worn off enough yet to feel it as a loss if it never happened again.

“I know,” Julian said hastily, “But I didn’t think you minded me reading to you, sometimes?”

Mila tried to scuff her boot across the floor, but couldn’t reach, and stared down at her plate. “I like the voices.”

“I’ll have to find a story with a lot of them to do, then. If you want another story, I mean.”

Apparently he was going to make her ask. Mila didn’t like asking for things. She never had. You got what you were given, in the Centre, and it showed undue humility to the Prophets to ask for more than your due. Besides, usually if you had to ask for something extra, it was because it was more than the Centre had. But stories were safe enough, weren’t they?

“...can I have another story,” she parroted, trying not to look at him directly, just in case he said no.

“Of course you can.” Julian sounded a little confused now. “Do you want to choose a book, or should I?”

Mila shrugged, and slid her plate across the table towards Julian, hopping down and watching as he took the plates over to the replicator. She nearly jumped out of her skin when they disappeared, though Julian didn’t notice it. People didn’t just- You didn’t just recycle perfectly good plates, did you? Not even here. But- She didn’t see a cupboard for them, or anywhere they could be stored. She clutched her skirt in white-knuckled fingers, a hundred of Miss Deela’s lectures on wastefulness clawing through her head at once.

“Mila?” Julian asked. She hadn’t realised he was watching her. “Are you all right?”

Was she? She had to be. What was the alternative? Say she was biting down on fear because of recycled plates? How stupid would that sound to him?   
“Fine,” she mumbled.

“You’re sure?” He looked worried. She hadn’t meant to worry him.

“I’m sure, Ju- Dad.” She smiled, a little awkwardly. That was the right word, wasn’t it? It must be, because Julian’s expression froze for a moment, then broke into a smile so wide it almost hurt to look at it. “Are there any more books about Howl and Sophie?” she asked, not wanting the smile to go away.

Julian blinked. “I...I don’t know. I can find out-”

“You don’t have to,” Mila said, a little plaintively. She didn’t want to be a bother. No more of a bother than she already had been, and how long until he figured out she hadn’t been worth the effort after all? Maybe….maybe he’d let her stay anyway. He was a kind person, he’d do it just to be kind. Some people were like that, Miss Deela had said once. Some people were just mean to everyone because they were cruel, and that was just the way they were made. Maybe it worked the other way around, so you got people who’d be kind to anyone, because that was the way  _ they  _ were made too.

“I’d like to,” Julian said, smiling a little awkwardly. “If you’d like to hear it?”

The story was set in a very different place to the Ingary of Howl and Sophie’s story, and neither Howl nor Sophie had yet appeared, though Julian said that was because they had, after all, had their happy ending, and so it was someone else’s turn, and they would turn up by and by, in the midst of living happily and hair-raisingly ever after. Mila didn’t see how it could be both at once. Maybe she would, now. This was the point where most of the stories in her book of Federation stories had ended - she had a home, a place, and Julian, who let her call him ‘Dad’ and beamed at her whenever she did.

No-one in any of those stories had ever said that living happily ever after could frighten you so much. Sara never wondered if her Uncle Ralph would send her back to Miss Minchin if she was naughty. Once Ozana was Heir to the First House of Betazed, no-one ever said there was a way to take her crown and her holy rings away and make her just Ozana again. Maybe that was the way it worked in the Federation. But Mila was Bajoran enough to know that not even the Prophets’ blessings could be taken for granted, and Cardassian enough to know how far short of the Prophets’ blessings she fell.

She would be good, she promised herself. He’d have no cause to complain of her. And she would never go back. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

The Celestial Temple flared blue and gold outside her window, and Mila curled on the windowsill, staring out into the whirling, blazing lights outside, and wondered what it would take to make sure she could stay. 

 


End file.
